Chennai

Opening his Budget debate in the Assembly with a mention of Stalin’s soaring popularity rating after the successful handling of the second COVID wave, PMK MLA from Pennagaram GK Mani said that he was duty bound to appreciate the CM and the government for presenting the state’s first agriculture budget.

Listing out the achievements of the 100-day-old DMK regime, Mani quoted a Tirukkural couplet and said the speech of the CM on the 100th day of the government showed his generosity and maturity to embrace all.

The PMK state president wrapped up his speech with, “Shabash, shabash, shabash (well done in Hindi) to the government,” the same government his ally AIADMK had lampooned lock, stock and barrel.

Compartmental quota to all

Unsurprisingly, the PMK leader also made a few requests to the treasury benches, including provision of compartmental reservation for all castes to realise ‘Thanthai’ Periyar’s dream. Also appreciating the budget announcements for the Tamil development department, the PMK state president also asked the government to ensure that legislators ink their names in Tamil in the attendance register.

Asking the government to increase its non-tax revenue through mineral sand mining and administrative reforms, he also drew the government’s attention to reduced budgetary allocation for health and school education departments in the revised budget.

Seeking to clarify Mani, both School Education Minister Mahesh Poyyamozhi and Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan attributed the reduction in comparison with earlier interim budget to delay in payment of revised Dearness Allowance to government employees. Advising the PMK MLA to not get influenced by the wrong growth projects of the previous AIADMK regime, the Finance Minister assured that the government would reduce the revenue deficit in the coming year in the state which has been seeing six consecutive years of rising revenue deficit. Mani also asked the government to prepare a master plan for irrigation like Karnataka and constitute an expert legal committee to protect the state’s riparian rights on Cauvery issue.

LPG price rise

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Thiaga Rajan informed the Assembly that the state had no role in fixing the price of domestic LPG cylinders. When PMK MLA Mani sought the state’s intervention to check the price of domestic LPG.

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